Chaos eventually erupted in the barnyard

Once upon a time, my kids had what was then considered a high-tech gizmo: one of those See ‘n Say toys, where you dial an image of a certain animal, such as a cow, pull a string, and out would come something along the lines of, “The cow says ‘moo.’” ?

Chaos eventually erupted in the barnyard after the toy developed a low-tech malfunction, resulting in chickens making “moo” sounds, cows making “baa” sounds ? and so forth.

We’ve come a long way since then, perhaps too long a way. Witness complaints by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood over claims that certain mobile apps can help babies learn.

As recently reported by ?The Associated Press, this is the same group that mobilized against those “Baby Einstein” videos a few years ago, leading to nationwide consumer refunds. According to the AP, the American Academy of Pediatrics has also weighed in, discouraging any “screen time” for kids under 2.

If this includes smartphones, that battle is already lost. Last winter, my youngest grandson, then 23 months old, could grab his mother’s phone, speed dial his other grandmother in Colorado, then carry on a somewhat disjointed conversation of sighs, grunts? and an occasional recognizable word. Meanwhile, his older brother, closing in on age 4, regards the home computer as just another fun device among his arsenal of toys.

None of this, of course, was available when my own kids were little. The best toys my son ever had were Legos, which he fashioned into every sort of object you could imagine, from trucks to fire stations to rocket ships. Alas, even good old Lego has now gone digital, allowing kids to design hundreds of virtual models without ever having to touch a real Lego.

As for my daughter, her favorite toy throughout her childhood was an old doll named “Baby,” tossed aside by an aunt who had no use for such creatures. I don’t know if our daughter took Baby on her honeymoon but it sure went with her when she moved out of the house.

Mr. Potato Head and an occasional Cootie — as in the game — were the only items I ever assembled as a kid, although my younger brother, who would go on to become a civil engineer, did have an Erector set.

Then, as now, it can be argued that the best toy a kid can have is not the toy but the cardboard box it came in. Never more has that been proven than with the case of Caine Monroy, who at age 9 started building an arcade out of discarded cardboard in his dad’s East L.A. used auto parts store.

As recently outlined in myriad national news reports, young Caine had few visitors to his arcade that summer of 2011 until a filmmaker by the name of Nirvan Mullick wandered in looking for a used door handle. Not long after, Mullick made a film about the arcade and also organized a flash mob of customers.

Naturally, the thing went viral, raising more than $225,000 in college scholarship money for Caine. More importantly, Caine’s arcade has jumpstarted a wave of cardboard creativity through the non-profit Imagination Foundation, which inspires kids around the world to “think outside the box.”

Last year kids from 41 countries participated in the foundation’s “cardboard challenge,” churning out everything from football tables to robots and claw machines.

“It doesn’t matter how old you are,” Caine recently told NBC News. “All you need is cardboard and your imagination.”

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Is that gambling at Speaking Rock?

Walk into the Socorro Entertainment Center or Speaking Rock, both operated by the Tigua Indians of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, and what you’ll find there looks like gambling, sounds like gambling and feels like gambling.

In room after room, there are hundreds of machines that look, play and pay a lot like slot machines.

You can put in a $10 bill and in a matter of minutes, lose it all or double your money and then take the machine’s payout slip to a cashier and get cash.

But sometimes, under the complexities of Texas and federal law, what may look, feel and pay like gambling isn’t gambling at all.

The Texas Attorney General’s office, which shut down the Tiguas’ Speaking Rock Casino in 2002 after a three-year legal fight, doesn’t like what’s happening on the tribe’s properties now and has tried to stop it.

In legal motions, the state calls it gambling. But no court has agreed.

The machines are not slots; they are sweepstakes validation terminals, the tribe’s lawyers contend. And no court has disagreed.

So, the games go on at the Tigua entertainment centers, along with free concerts by big name performers and bands, alcohol sales, good food and the cheapest cigarettes in Texas.

The free concerts put a big dent in competitors’ business and have closed down a few, said one venue manager who asked not to be named.

“It has affected a tier of entertainment and those clubs that are close to the entertainment centers,” he said. “Look at any casino in New Mexico. Anyone who does entertainment will charge for tickets to break even, and then make money on gambling and alcohol.

“Why is this the only back-door casino that has free concerts?”

Visit Speaking Rock on a weekday morning, and you’ll find a surprising number of cars in the parking lot, great 1960s and ‘70s music playing in the game rooms and a crowd of older folks sitting comfortably in front of noisy machines with cartoony graphics.

A lot of the patrons are women and a lot of them smoke. Ashtrays are everywhere. Serious players say they come two or three times a week, others once or twice a month.

“You win and you lose,” said one regular with $80 in credits on her machine.

On one morning last week, the half dozen players El Paso Inc. interviewed all spoke Spanish only, and agreed that they were having a good time gambling – or playing. It’s the same word in Spanish.

El Paso District Attorney Jaime Esparza declined to comment on the situation but conveyed his thoughts through office spokeswoman Renee Railey.

She said Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot has jurisdiction over gaming issues on the Tiguas’ tribal land, not Esparza’s office.

In opinion after opinion delivered to counties and cities, the attorney general opinions consistently state that if the machines pay cash, they’re illegal and in violation of criminal laws against gambling.

The 2012 opinion to a county attorney states, “Because the eight-liner machines described in your request issue tickets redeemable for items that do not constitute noncash merchandise prizes, toys, or novelties, the machines do not meet the standard for the illegal gambling device exception (provided by the Texas Penal Code).”